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A bigger balance sheet after the merger with HDFC Ltd will enable HDFC Bank to take a larger exposure in infrastructure projects, Sashidhar Jagdishan, the bank’s Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), said on Wednesday.
“This means we can participate more meaningfully in India’s growth story and contribute to nation building,” the CEO said in his message to the shareholders. The merger came into effect on July 1, 2023.
“In light of all this, the pace at which we aim to grow – we could be creating a new HDFC Bank every four years,” he added.
According to Jagdishan, this was an opportunity that the bank truly believed in. “Buying a home is a family decision and an emotional one. This emotion is transferred to the home loan service provider and helps build lifelong bonds with the customer and his family. Also, only 2 per cent of our customers source their home loans through the bank, while 5 per cent do it from other institutions. This itself is a huge opportunity,” he said.
In financial year 2022-23, the bank added a record 1,479 branches, a majority of which are in semi urban and rural (SURU) locations.
“We plan to add another 675 this year in SURU locations that will take the total number of branches in these locations to over 5,000. Overall, the Bank plans to add 1,500 to 2,000 additional branches during the year,” he said.
“Branch banking is the fulcrum of customer relationships, and we believe that a physical branch is extremely important to customers especially in semi urban and rural locations. The concept of phygital branches will help us to be agile in meeting customer needs through digital transactions and at the same time give customers a sense of engagement and security with a physical touchpoint,” he said.
